CHILD OF THE SUN
By LEIGH BRACKETT
Far beyond molten Mercury flashed the
Patrol-pursued Falcon.... Out
to where black Vulcan whirled his
hidden orbit, and a flame-auraed last
child of Sol played his cosmic game.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Eric Falken stood utterly still, staring down at his leashed andhelpless hands on the controls of the spaceship Falcon.
The red lights on his indicator panel showed Hiltonist ships in athree-dimensional half-moon, above, behind, and below him. Pincer jaws,closing fast.
The animal instinct of escape prodded him, but he couldn't obey. He hadfuel enough for one last burst of speed. But there was no way throughthat ring of ships. Tractor-beams, criss-crossing between them, wouldnet the Falcon like a fish.
There was no way out ahead, either. Mercury was there, harsh and bitterin the naked blaze of the sun. The ships of Gantry Hilton, Presidentof the Federation of Worlds, inventor of the Psycho-Adjuster, andruler of men's souls, were herding him down to a landing at the lonelySpaceguard outpost.
A landing he couldn't dodge. And then....
For Paul Avery, a choice of death or Happiness. For himself and SheilaMoore, there was no choice. It was death.
The red lights blurred before Falken's eyes. The throb of the platesunder his feet faded into distance. He'd stood at the controls for fourchronometer days, ever since the Hiltonists had chased him up fromLosangles, back on Earth.
He knew it was because he was exhausted that he couldn't think, orstop the nightmare of the past days from tramping through his brain,hammering the incessant question at him. How?
How had the Hiltonists traced him back from New York? Paul Avery,the Unregenerate recruit he went to get, had passed a rigidpsycho-search—which, incidentally, revealed the finest brain ever tocome to the Unregenerate cause. He couldn't be a spy. And he'd spokento no one but Falken.
Yet they were traced. Hiltonist Black Guards were busy now, destroyingthe last avenues of escape from Earth, avenues that he, Falken, had ledthem through.
But how? He knew he hadn't given himself away. For thirty years he'dbeen spiriting Unregenerates away from Gantry Hilton's strongholds ofPeace and Happiness. He was too old a hand for blunders.
Yet, somehow, the Black Guards caught up with them at Losangles, wherethe Falcon lay hidden. And, somehow, they got away, with a starvinggreen-eyed girl named Kitty....
"Not Kitty," Falken muttered. "Kitty's Happy. Hilton took Kitty, thirtyyears ago. On our wedding day."
A starving waif named Sheila Moore, who begged him for help, because hewas Eric Falken and almost a god to the Unregenerates. They got away inthe Falcon, but the Hiltonist ships followed.
Driven, hopeless flight, desperate effort to shake pursuit before hewas too close to the Sun. Time and again, using precious fuel andaccelerations that tried even his tough body, Falken thought he hadescaped.
But they found him again. It was uncanny, the way they found him.
Now he couldn't run any more. At least he'd led the Hiltonists awayfrom the pitiful starving holes where his people hid, on the outerplanets and barren asteroids and dark derelict hulks floating faroutside the traveled lanes.
And he'd kill himself before the Hiltonist psycho-sear